Hi everyone,
I’m trying to sync engagements that come from external integrations (like Intercom, Zoom, etc.) in HubSpot to my tool using the HubSpot API. Currently, the HubSpot CRM communications API supports syncing communication types (calls, emails, etc.), but I’m particularly interested in pulling engagement data from external tools that have been logged in HubSpot (I see them in UI, but not in API).
Does anyone know if there’s a way to do this through HubSpot’s current API? Or, if there are any plans to extend the communications API to include data from tools like Intercom or other integrations? I’d appreciate any insights on building a custom sync solution with the available API or other suggestions.
Thanks in advance!
The short answer is:
Unfortunately, you’ve hit a common roadblock – HubSpot’s CRM communications API does not currently expose the specialized engagement data logged by external integrations like Intercom conversations or Zoom webinar events, even though you can see them in the UI.
Those external activities are often logged as a custom type of object or a specialized timeline event which aren’t typically included in the main API endpoints for standard engagements like calls, emails, and meetings.
The best way to sync this external engagement data to your custom app is to bypass HubSpot as the primary source for this specific data.
Instead, you should pull the raw engagement data directly from the Intercom and Zoom APIs and use those services’ webhooks to push the data to your app, giving you complete, immediate, and granular control over the data flow.
The long answer is:
It’s frustrating when you can see the data in the HubSpot UI but can’t access it via the API you’re using.
What you are seeing for Intercom and Zoom are very likely not the standard engagement objects that the communications API exposes, but rather custom timeline events created specifically by those integrations.
For instance, Intercom conversations are typically logged as an Intercom conversation event on the contact timeline using the HubSpot Timeline API, and Zoom events can be logged as custom objects like “Zoom Events Sessions” or as a form of event data.
These specialized data points aren’t easily retrievable through the general engagement APIs you are currently querying.
As for a roadmap to extend the communications API, there is no public information confirming that this external engagement data will be rolled into the existing standard APIs.
The most robust and customizable long-term solution is to build a custom sync that pulls the data directly from the source applications and formats it for your app.
The most elegant and cheapest way to achieve this involves using the Intercom REST API and Zoom Meeting API in conjunction with a modern, server-side tracking infrastructure using a tool like Google Tag Manager and a server container platform such as Stape or a simple function-as-a-service on Google Cloud Platform.
Here is why this approach works so well.
First, you would configure the Intercom and Zoom services to use webhooks.
For example, the Intercom API can send a real-time notification to a specific URL every time a conversation is closed, and the Zoom API can send a notification when a meeting recording is ready.
Second, you would set up your server-side environment with Google Tag Manager’s server container.
This container acts as an intermediary where all the webhooks from Intercom and Zoom land.
This server-side environment is ideal because it allows you to process the raw data securely and run the necessary custom logic to clean, normalize, and format the data exactly as your application needs it.
You can write custom code within the server container or the back-end (Google Cloud Platform, Stape, etc.) to perform tasks like associating the engagement with a record ID in your system, extracting a clean transcript, or calculating a conversation’s resolution time.
Third, after processing the raw engagement data, your server-side solution would then make a final, well-structured API call directly to your custom application.
This bypasses the need to pull the data from HubSpot entirely, which is a huge advantage.
It’s an excellent and cheap solution because setting up the server-side architecture with tools like Stape is often extremely low-cost or even free, and the use of webhooks (instead of constantly polling the source APIs) dramatically reduces the number of API calls you need to make, avoiding rate limits and keeping your operating costs low.
This setup future-proofs your data sync by giving you complete control over the data transformation logic, ensuring you are not dependent on HubSpot’s API catching up with how it exposes third-party integration data.
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